Electronic duo Mitú have had their music described in many ways; yet if there was one word rarely attributed to the project, it would be ‘conventional’.

Little surprise then that the latest video the couplet has released, for the track “Suave” off their latest album Cosmus, falls firmly into the category of surreal. Nevertheless, whilst the video may be well suited to the duo’s less than conventional sounds, it undoubtedly offers a fresh approach to the visual style associated with Mitú.

The track itself, which relies heavily on a lead digital melody and is propped up by synth sounds throughout, combines fittingly in its sonic evocation of the video’s hark back to 1980’s arcade culture. Pitting an ancient samurai warrior against a mime artist through the lens of an everyday backdrop that is a Colombian billiard hall, the video conjures up a juxtaposition which contrasts the bizarre against the hyper-real.

One half of the group, Julian Salazar, explained a little about the creative direction of the video. “A samurai fighting against anyone, in modern times where he no longer belongs. Sometimes, out of context is the best medicine for the world’s ills, like not taking everything so seriously.”

For the ever creative partnership, it was a means of trying things a little differently, putting things in places that they ought not to be, and acting somewhat ‘off the cuff’ in order to change the approach in which they made music videos.

Salazar explains more about how the group embarked on the project with little pre-planning and great deal of improvisation. “We just took a camera, walked a bit down the street, selected a place, improvised a couple of actors on the street and gave them certain instructions without any notion of where to go really; discovering that destination on the road. I guess that’s why the result is not at all clear.”

Unclear may be a fair assessment perhaps, yet the video manages to pertain an intriguing effectiveness in equal measure.

Mitú released their most recent album Cosmus on ZZK Records in 2017 and have already announced plans for a fifth studio album later in 2018. Whilst lo-fi samurai mime doesn’t come promised, we’ll take the latest release as assurance that constant innovation and musical evolution remain constant as ever in Mitú’s endeavours.

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